There's a Runner....

“It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.”~ Dr. George Sheehan

8 miles. This girl. Last night. Bam!

That is the farthest I've ever run in my life. My prior record was 7.5 at Bay to Breakers 2010. Since I started training back in March for my half marathon, my longest had been 5 miles. But last night, things just came together. It was cool and raining and perfect. I cannot tell you how amazing it felt to do 8.

Turns out, there's a runner inside me. Inside ME....the girl who has never met a chocolate chip cookie she didn't like. The girl who was threatened with failing the last 6 weeks of PE by my basketball coach senior year of high school because I refused to run track (FYI--June May took care of that issue for me and I became an unoffical office aide. June told me not to worry because she entered the grades. Ha! That saint of a woman ran that school!) The girl who always dreaded hearing "get on the line" in practice and was consistently in the middle of the pack running sprints. The girl who complained every day about running the hill (a fact that Mrs. Franklin loves to remind me of to this day!) and who almost lost a chunk of hair in doing so.

So last night, I realized a couple of things.

First, there is a point where you decide that you're just going to do it. Period. When I left my house, I was planning on running 3 miles. But then the moment of truth came. For me, this point comes early in a run. At about a mile and a half or so, I decided that I was running 8 miles. And that was that. I didn't look back. Sometimes I think that is all it takes, a realization that we can do it, and that we will do it, no matter what. We just have to get to that point.

Second, the problem I think, has never been that there wasnt' a runner inside me. The problem was that there are lots of other things inside me too. There's a lazy person (who the couch beckons to), a quitter (i.e. the 10K I totally turned into a 5K for myself last week....in fairness it was like 90 degrees and miserable!), a doubter (who says I can't do it). The key is making sure that the runner wins the battle with these other people.

And, as usually happens, I think this relates to lots of areas in my life. There is a kind person inside me too---but sometimes she gets drowned out by the jerk that lives in here. There is a prayerful person inside of me, but sometimes she gets trumped by the tired chick who just wants to get to sleep.

So what did we learn from this? (1) The rain makes everything better! (2) I am going to survive the San Francisco Half Marathon. (3) I can do anything I put my mind to. and (4) The person that I want to be, that I think I'm meant to be, is inside me. I just have to find her.